+++Please note the last paragraph contains spoilers for Alien: Romulus
It’s been a saturated week for fluids. Thursday night (yes, IN BETWEEN seeing The Substance, and then Alien: Romulus) I attended a cabaret show. This is a thing I do because I know a lot of public dancers, and I enjoy the spectacle of fire eating from time to time. So, there I am in the front row, watching a performer who goes by the stage name Bloodrouge Dragon do a strip tease dressed as Catwoman. At the back of the stage is a small, inflatable paddling pool because…..yes, she is indeed going to pour almond milk all over herself for the finale.
I enjoyed this playful homage to Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, that moment when Selina Kyle returns to her apartment, and hungrily drinks milk before embarking on her full transformation into the most fetishistic iteration of this character. How does one imagine the smell of Gotham? Oh, I expect there is a whiff of candy floss in the air, chilled by the snow, and that Selina is not so much a gal that likes White Russians, but she does strike me as time saver, and would not be above throwing a dash of Tia Maria into her milk, coupled with the tang of latex, and the chemical smear of red lipstick.
Looking at this beguiling gif, I am reminded of what Anna Bogutskaya writes of Coré (Beatrice Dalle) in Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day, “she is too hungry for this world.” (2024: 107) I have been rolling this idea around in my mind and thinking about goo. Goo can also be a signal of hunger of one sort or another: the salivation before tasting something delicious, or the caress of your lover’s/lovers’ moist palate(s). Catwoman is too hungry for Gotham, Elisabeth Sparkle is too hungry for Hollywood, and the xenomorph is too hungry for a single galaxy.
I saw this tweet from the horror writer Alison Rumfitt (author of the terrifying Tell Me I’m Worthless) before I saw Alien: Romulus and thought ‘hah, excellent.’ When I asked another friend about his recent viewing of the film, he responded with a variety of squeals and screams and I also took this as a positive sign. Now, the Alien franchise has concerned itself with many things over the years: corrupt corporations, the perils of not seeking ethical approval, deep space as an unsettling frontier, and the consequences of a future built on extractive economies. But what interests me here is goo.
The future of Alien: Romulus is built on the indentured labour of capitalism’s orphans, rather than the elite soldiers and scientists of other entries in the series. The horrors of Weyland-Yutani’s unchecked experimentation with xenomorph DNA are well-documented, and it’s a big challenge as to where to take us next in order to evoke the shiver of horror. This is perhaps where goo plays a significant role. Goo is primordial, a seeping response that is often beyond conscious control. The xenomorph’s jaws drip with viscous drool, and its body has acid for blood. In its various evolutionary forms, from face-hugger, to chest-burster, to fully upright adult, it is constantly surrounded by moisture, mist, flesh (borrowed or grown), blood, and other fluids. The xenomorph always oozes. Much has been made of the xenomorph’s ability to impregnate any host, to rapidly adapt to whatever body is available, and to make use of the flesh that is to hand. Its body contains forms that mimic all aspects of human genitalia, but I find it difficult to imagine what it might smell like other than a slaughterhouse. Is it any wonder that so many of the future’s workers continue to smoke cigarettes? Since there is nothing quite like a strong cigarette freshly lit to mask a lingering, unpleasant odour.
The xenomorph’s DNA is medicalised and manipulated by Weyland-Yutani, and so is that of Elisabeth and Sue in The Substance: from the neon-yellow activator, to the liquified nutrition fed intravenously, to its spinal tap extractions—these women’s bodies run on goo. The irony here is that Fargeat’s film renders this endless quest for youth (or at least, glowing hydration) as grim and monstrous when the beauty industry has excelled at producing odourless, tasteless and colourless goos: hyaluronic acid, collagen supplements, and exfoliants all tend to be presented as colourless goo, or at most a slightly flavoured powder.
In The Substance, men also run on goo; Harvey (Dennis Quade) the oily and flamboyant television executive, (in memorably disgusting sequences) messily consumes a bowl of prawns, his pursed mouth filmed in close-up, smeared with sauce and morsels of invertebrate, and later blowing out a constant stream of cigarette smoke. The xenomorph’s body remains unsettling because of its monstrous jaws which are simultaneously phallic and vulval, and in The Substance the patriarch’s mouth resembles nothing more than an all-consuming anus. But these are just two moments in that film’s tapestry of ass, which displays the pert and gym-sculpted peach of Sue’s chosen himbo, contrasted with Elisabeth’s sagging, decaying hindquarters as she growls through the bathroom door. This feral sound, and her blood on the floor sends the himbo fleeing into the Hollywood hills, unprepared to confront the goo it takes to remain porelessly relevant in that industry.
But it is a woman injecting herself with an unknown serum out of sheer desperation that unites these two films. Kay (Isabela Merced) is desperate to escape and survive towards the end of Alien: Romulus, and as a result, injects herself with what she believes is refined xenomorph DNA. Rather than serving to regenerate her own body (something that is also promised in The Substance) what happens to Kay is both predictable and devastating, as she gives birth to the most distressing monster of the Alien franchise: worse than Ripley’s dog-like offspring, worse than the Alien queen, we are confronted with a gaunt cannibal who is also too hungry for this world. To be too hungry is to burn with a need that can never be filled, but in Alien: Romulus, this is also a need that should never be filled, reinforcing once more that the xenomorph can never be understood because it is an unstoppable force, chewing through everything in its path.
*Thank you A, for this turn of phrase
"Tapestry of ass".